CUPS not showing page count.

[LadyH]

My question: How can I tweak CUPS so that the "Jobs" section shows how many pages a print job will have? Right now it displays "unknown".

Background:
I've set up a Daryna printer server, using CUPS to run stuff, in a public library setting. Public patrons send print jobs from WinXP computers and the print jobs sit in CUPS, printer paused, until they come up and pay for their print jobs. Print jobs are released, everyone's happy, including the librarian who budgets our printing paper.

For the most part, it's working fine. However, I noticed that under the "Jobs" setting, where print jobs are listed, under "pages", the number of pages is listed as "unknown".

This causes my librarians some frustration as when a public patron prints a web page, we want to tell them how much their print job will cost. To make the patron go back and get a semi-accurate print count from Print Preview is bad customer service.

When I send print jobs from the server itself, it will list page counts. But send a job from one of the WinXP machines, and it doesn't show the number of pages. (It does, however, show the document size, but that's no indication of how big a print job is going to be.)

Our public patrons get frustrated when they send a web page to print, thinking it'll be two or three pages, and it ends up being twenty.

[Husse]

When I send print jobs from the server itself, it will list page counts. But send a job from one of the WinXP machines, and it doesn't show the number of pages.

Seems to be a windows problem - or not...
I'm loosing my XP expertise as I only use XP for one specific purpose nowadays
What interface does the XP machines have?
Can they read the page count?
I think that's the center point

[LadyH]

For testing purposes, I've got the machines connecting to the printer two different ways.

1. Through the LAN via a Standard TCP/IP port

2. Via the print server through an Internet port


When I print through connection #1, it sends the print job, including the name of the job, the computer it's coming from, the document size, and then once the job is loaded, it loads the page count last.

I'm wondering if there's some sort of communication between the computer and the printer. If that's the case, it appears this pingback communication is not happening when the job gets loaded into the print queue.

Then again, it might be my setup.

Generally, how print jobs are handled are that patrons send print jobs to one printer setup for my HP 5200 printer. This printer setup is constantly on pause. When a job comes through to be released, it's moved to a different setup for the HP 5200 that's unpaused, and the job prints.

I tried to find some sort of setup in CUPS that forced all jobs to come through "on hold", so that all I had to do was simply release them, but I couldn't find anything in CUPS, nor in any documentation I searched.

So I wonder if it's not communicating with the printer because I've got the printer queue "paused". After I move the job, and after it prints, it will show the page count. However, when I pause the printer in Windows, it'll still show page count. Go fig.

What I need to figure out is how the computer is communicating with the printer.

Otherwise, we may simply have to cope. But anything I can do to make their job easier is pretty much what my job is all about.

[Husse]

This is a bit outside my expertise, I have only dealt with standalone computers (be it that they can be in a small "straightforward" network)
But yes the printer does communicate with the computer, in different ways for different types of printers
It may have to do with the print language you use
Or perhaps Cups can't calculate the number of pages to be printed and when it's printed it knows and sends it
Sorry but I don't have much to say about this....